Introduction to Linguistics

Boxing Pre-Assessment

Step 1: Individually, draw a large box; then, draw a smaller box inside the large one. In the outside box, write what you know about linguistics In the inside box, answer, what do I want to learn?

Step 2: With partner, share what you know and what you want to learn. Revisit the outside box and write what you have just learned about linguistics and how it all fits Revisit the inside box and record one more thing you want to learn

Step 3: As a group, summarize your knowledge.

Brief Overview

Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist.

Branches of linguistics:

• Theoretical linguistics
  • The fields that are generally considered the core of theoretical linguistics are syntax, phonology, morphology, and semantics
• Applied linguistics
  • An interdisciplinary field of study that identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems.
  • Major branches include bilingualism and multilingualism, conversation analysis, contrastive linguistics, sign linguistics, language assessment, literacies, discourse analysis, language pedagogy, second language acquisition, lexicography, stylistics, and pragmatics.

Basic concepts

• Morphology morpheme, inflection, paradigm, declension, derivation, compound

• Phonology phoneme, allophone, segment, syllable, stress, tone

• Grammar tense, aspect, mood and modality, grammatical number, grammatical gender, case

• Syntax phrase, clause, grammatical function, grammatical voice

• Lexicology word, lexeme, lemma, lexicon, vocabulary, terminology

• Semantics meaning, sense, entailment, truth condition, compositionality

• Pragmatics presupposition, implicature, deixis

Linguistics Intro Spicy Node

Timeline of the attempts to make English the official language of the United States

The National Language Act